Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-10-18
ON A KENTUCKY FARM.
As.ociations Of Ante Bellum BOyhOs
'Mamlny." the Cook, ''Uncle Iom."

As.OciatiOns Of Ante-Bellum Roy hood.
"Mammy." the Cook. '.UncIe Tom."
The typical boy on Kentucky farm
was tenderly associated from infancy with
the negroes of the household and the
fields His old black nanny became
almost his first mother and was but
slowly crowded out of his conscience and
his heart by the growing image of the
true one. She had perhaps nursed him
at her bosom when he was not long
enough TO stretch across il. sung over his
cradle at noon and at midnight, taken
him oct upon the velvety grass beneath
the shade of the elm trees to watch his
first manly resolution of standing alone
in the world and walking the vast dis
tance Of some inches. Often in boyish
years when flying from the house with
loud appeal from the incomprehensible
code of Anglo-SaXon punishment for
small misdemeanors he had run to those
black arms and cried himself TO sleep in
the lap of African sympathy As he
grew older, alas! his first love grew faith
less, and while ''mammy" was good
enough in her way and sphere his wander
lug affections settled humbly at the feet
OF another great functionary of the house
hold-the cook in the kitchen. To him
her KEYS were as the keys to the kingdom
Of heaven. for his immortal soul was his
immortal appetite. When he stood by
the biscuit bench while she. pausing amid
the varied industries that went into the
preparation Of an old time Kentucky
supper, made him marvellous geese Of
dough. with farinaceous feathers and
genuine coffee grains for eyes, there was
n hin, M al har artist in N yx-nrII h.,
possessed the secret of so commingling
the useful with the beautiful
The little half naked imps. too. playing
in the dirt like glossy blackbIrds taking a
bath of dust, We're his sweetest-because,
perhaps, neutrality-suspicious. With
them he went clandestinely to the fatal
duck pond in the stable lot. to learn the
art of swimming on a walnut rail. With
them he raced up and down the lane on
blooded alder stalk horses, afterward
leading the exhausted coursers into stables
Of the same green bushes and haltering
them high with a cotton string. 1t was
one Of these hatless children Of original
Guinea that had crept up TO him as he lay
asleep in the summer grass and told him
where the best hidden of all nests was TO
be found in a far fence corner-that of
the high tempered, scolding guinea hen,
To them he showed his first Barlow knif5;
for them he blew his first home m.le
whistle. He is their petty tyrant today;
to morrow he will lie their repentant
friend. dividing with them his mnrbles
and proposing a game Of hop scotch.
Upon his dialect, his disposition, his
whole character, is laid the inefaceable
impress Of theirs, so that they pass into
the final reckoning up of his lie here and
in the world to come.
But Uncle Tom--the negro oyersecr of
the place-the greatest Of all the negroes
greater even than the cook, when one
is not hungry. How often has he strad-
died Uncle Toms neck, or ridden behind
him afield on bsrebacked horse to the
j!nglinG music of the trace chains, II is
Uncle Tom who brings him, his first young
squirrel to tame, the teeth of which are
soon to be planted in his right forefinger.
Many a time he slips out of the house to
take his dinner or supper in the cabin
with Uncle Tom; and during long winter
evenings he loves to sit before those great
roaring cabin fireplaces that throw their
red and yellow lights over the half circle
OF black faces and on the mysteries OF
broom making, chair bottoming and the
cobbliEg of shoes. Like the child who
listens to Uncle Remus." he too hears
songs and stories, and creeps back to the
house with a wondering look in his eyes
and vague hush Of spirit.-James Lane
Allen in The Century.